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"The World Has Divided into Rich and Poor as at No Time in History"
Maude Barlow: "The World Has Divided into Rich and Poor as at No Time in History"
Barlow-g20
As world leaders gathered in Toronto for the G20 summit last week, leading activists from around the world joined thousands in Toronto’s Massey Hall to oppose the G20 agenda. Maude Barlow was one of the key speakers at the event. She heads the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization, and is a founder of the Blue Planet Project.[includes rush transcript]
Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization, and a founder of the Blue Planet Project.
Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, More...
As world leaders gathered in Toronto for the G20 summit last week, leading activists from around the world joined thousands in Toronto’s Massey Hall to oppose the G20 agenda. Among those who spoke was Maude Barlow. She heads the Council of Canadians—Canada’s largest public advocacy organization. She’s founder of the Blue Planet Project. This is a part of what she had to say.
MAUDE BARLOW: On the eve of this G-20 gathering, let’s look at a few facts. Fact, the world has divided into rich and poor as at no time in our history. The richest 2% own more than half the household wealth in the world. The richest 10% hold 85% of total global assets and the bottom half of humanity owns less than 1% of the wealth in the world. The three richest men in the world have more money than the poorest 48 countries. Fact, while those responsible for the 2008 global financial crisis were bailed out and even rewarded by the G-20 government’s gathering here, the International Labor Organization tells us that in 2009, 34 million people were added to the global unemployed, swelling those ranks to 239 million, the highest ever recorded. Another 200 million are at risk in precarious jobs and the World Bank tells us that at the end of 2010, another 64 million will have lost their jobs. By 2030, more than half the population of the megacities of the Global South will be slumdwellers with no access to education, health care, water, or sanitation. Fact, global climate change is rapidly advancing, claiming at least 300,000 lives and $125 billion in damages every year. Called the silent crisis, climate change is melting glaciers, eroding soil, causing freak and increasingly wild storms, displacing untold millions from rural communities to live in desperate poverty in peri-urban centers. Almost every victim lives in the Global South in communities not responsible for greenhouse gas emissions and not represented here at the summit.
The atmosphere has already warmed up a full degree in the last several decades and is on course to warm up another two degrees by 2100. Fact, half the tropical forests in the world, the lungs of our ecosystem, are gone. By 2030, at the present rate of extraction or so-called harvest, only 10% will be left standing. 90% of the big fish in the sea are gone, victim to wanton predatory fishing practice. Says a prominent scientist studying their demise, there is no blue frontier left. Half the world’s wetlands, the kidneys of our ecosystem, have been destroyed in the 20th century. Species extinction is taking place at a rate 1,000 times greater than before humans existed. According to a Smithsonian scientist, we are headed toward of biodiversity deficit in which species and ecosystems will be destroyed at a rate faster than nature can replace them with new ones. Fact, we are polluting our lakes, rivers and streams to death. Every day, two million tons of sewage and industrial agricultural waste are discharged into the world’s water. That’s the equivalent of the entire human population of 6.8 billion people. The amount of waste water produced annually is about six times more water than exists in all the rivers of the world. We are minding our ground water faster than we can replenish it, sucking it to grow water guzzling chemical-fed crops in deserts or to water thirsty cities who dump an astounding 700 trillion liters of land-based water into oceans every year as waste.
The global mining industry ***** up another 800 trillion liters which it also leaves behind as poison and fully one-third of global water withdrawals are now used to produce biofuels, enough water to feed the world. Nearly three billion people on our planet do not have running water within a kilometer of their home and every eight seconds, somewhere in our world, a child is dying of waterborne disease. The global water crisis is getting steadily worse with reports of countries from India to Pakistan to Yemen facing depletion. The World Bank says that by 2030, demand for water will outstrip supply by 40%. This may sound just like a statistic, but the suffering behind that is absolutely unspeakable. Fact, knowing there will not be enough food and water for all in the near future, wealthy countries and global investment pension and hedge funds are buying up land and water, fields and forests in the Global South, creating a new wave of invasive colonialism that will have huge geopolitical ramifications. Rich countries faced by food shortages have already bought up an area in Africa alone more than twice the size of the United Kingdom. Now I don’t think I exaggerate if I say that our world has never faced a greater set of threats and issues than it does today. So what are the twenty leaders who have gathered here, some already here and the others coming in tonight, what are they going to talk about over the next two days? By the way, their summit costs $1 million a minute. By the way, we figure it’s going to be closer to $2 billion when it’s finished, and the annual budget to run the United Nations is $1.9 billion. I assure you, they are not going to tackle the above issues in any serious way.
The declarations have already been drafted, the failures already spun. Instead, this global royalty who have more in common with one another than they do with their own citizens and they are here really to advance the issues and interest of their class are also here just to advance the status quo that serves the interest of the elite in their own countries and the business community or the B-20, the new term, a community that will get private and privileged access to advance their free market solutions to these eager leaders. The agenda is more of the bad medicine that made the world sick in the first place. Environmental deregulation, unbridled financial speculation, unlimited growth, unregulated free trade, relentless resource exploitation, tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to Social Security and a war on working people. In other words, savage capitalism. Now let’s look at our own country here and the assault that has been launched on the work of generations of Canadians toward a just society. Stephen Harper’s government has cut the heart out of any group that dissents, from First Nations people, to women, to international agencies and church groups like KAIROS, Alternative, and the Canadian Council for International Cooperation.
AMY GOODMAN: Maude Barlow, one of the major speakers at the event at Massey Hall on Friday night. Three thousand people packed-in to the Toronto event. This was at the same time the G8 and then the G20 met. Between 900 and 1,000 people are believed to have been arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. Among them, many journalists. More than a billion dollars, it’s believed, were spent on so-called security, the most expensive security event in Canadian history.
Barlow-g20
As world leaders gathered in Toronto for the G20 summit last week, leading activists from around the world joined thousands in Toronto’s Massey Hall to oppose the G20 agenda. Maude Barlow was one of the key speakers at the event. She heads the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization, and is a founder of the Blue Planet Project.[includes rush transcript]
Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization, and a founder of the Blue Planet Project.
Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, More...
As world leaders gathered in Toronto for the G20 summit last week, leading activists from around the world joined thousands in Toronto’s Massey Hall to oppose the G20 agenda. Among those who spoke was Maude Barlow. She heads the Council of Canadians—Canada’s largest public advocacy organization. She’s founder of the Blue Planet Project. This is a part of what she had to say.
MAUDE BARLOW: On the eve of this G-20 gathering, let’s look at a few facts. Fact, the world has divided into rich and poor as at no time in our history. The richest 2% own more than half the household wealth in the world. The richest 10% hold 85% of total global assets and the bottom half of humanity owns less than 1% of the wealth in the world. The three richest men in the world have more money than the poorest 48 countries. Fact, while those responsible for the 2008 global financial crisis were bailed out and even rewarded by the G-20 government’s gathering here, the International Labor Organization tells us that in 2009, 34 million people were added to the global unemployed, swelling those ranks to 239 million, the highest ever recorded. Another 200 million are at risk in precarious jobs and the World Bank tells us that at the end of 2010, another 64 million will have lost their jobs. By 2030, more than half the population of the megacities of the Global South will be slumdwellers with no access to education, health care, water, or sanitation. Fact, global climate change is rapidly advancing, claiming at least 300,000 lives and $125 billion in damages every year. Called the silent crisis, climate change is melting glaciers, eroding soil, causing freak and increasingly wild storms, displacing untold millions from rural communities to live in desperate poverty in peri-urban centers. Almost every victim lives in the Global South in communities not responsible for greenhouse gas emissions and not represented here at the summit.
The atmosphere has already warmed up a full degree in the last several decades and is on course to warm up another two degrees by 2100. Fact, half the tropical forests in the world, the lungs of our ecosystem, are gone. By 2030, at the present rate of extraction or so-called harvest, only 10% will be left standing. 90% of the big fish in the sea are gone, victim to wanton predatory fishing practice. Says a prominent scientist studying their demise, there is no blue frontier left. Half the world’s wetlands, the kidneys of our ecosystem, have been destroyed in the 20th century. Species extinction is taking place at a rate 1,000 times greater than before humans existed. According to a Smithsonian scientist, we are headed toward of biodiversity deficit in which species and ecosystems will be destroyed at a rate faster than nature can replace them with new ones. Fact, we are polluting our lakes, rivers and streams to death. Every day, two million tons of sewage and industrial agricultural waste are discharged into the world’s water. That’s the equivalent of the entire human population of 6.8 billion people. The amount of waste water produced annually is about six times more water than exists in all the rivers of the world. We are minding our ground water faster than we can replenish it, sucking it to grow water guzzling chemical-fed crops in deserts or to water thirsty cities who dump an astounding 700 trillion liters of land-based water into oceans every year as waste.
The global mining industry ***** up another 800 trillion liters which it also leaves behind as poison and fully one-third of global water withdrawals are now used to produce biofuels, enough water to feed the world. Nearly three billion people on our planet do not have running water within a kilometer of their home and every eight seconds, somewhere in our world, a child is dying of waterborne disease. The global water crisis is getting steadily worse with reports of countries from India to Pakistan to Yemen facing depletion. The World Bank says that by 2030, demand for water will outstrip supply by 40%. This may sound just like a statistic, but the suffering behind that is absolutely unspeakable. Fact, knowing there will not be enough food and water for all in the near future, wealthy countries and global investment pension and hedge funds are buying up land and water, fields and forests in the Global South, creating a new wave of invasive colonialism that will have huge geopolitical ramifications. Rich countries faced by food shortages have already bought up an area in Africa alone more than twice the size of the United Kingdom. Now I don’t think I exaggerate if I say that our world has never faced a greater set of threats and issues than it does today. So what are the twenty leaders who have gathered here, some already here and the others coming in tonight, what are they going to talk about over the next two days? By the way, their summit costs $1 million a minute. By the way, we figure it’s going to be closer to $2 billion when it’s finished, and the annual budget to run the United Nations is $1.9 billion. I assure you, they are not going to tackle the above issues in any serious way.
The declarations have already been drafted, the failures already spun. Instead, this global royalty who have more in common with one another than they do with their own citizens and they are here really to advance the issues and interest of their class are also here just to advance the status quo that serves the interest of the elite in their own countries and the business community or the B-20, the new term, a community that will get private and privileged access to advance their free market solutions to these eager leaders. The agenda is more of the bad medicine that made the world sick in the first place. Environmental deregulation, unbridled financial speculation, unlimited growth, unregulated free trade, relentless resource exploitation, tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to Social Security and a war on working people. In other words, savage capitalism. Now let’s look at our own country here and the assault that has been launched on the work of generations of Canadians toward a just society. Stephen Harper’s government has cut the heart out of any group that dissents, from First Nations people, to women, to international agencies and church groups like KAIROS, Alternative, and the Canadian Council for International Cooperation.
AMY GOODMAN: Maude Barlow, one of the major speakers at the event at Massey Hall on Friday night. Three thousand people packed-in to the Toronto event. This was at the same time the G8 and then the G20 met. Between 900 and 1,000 people are believed to have been arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. Among them, many journalists. More than a billion dollars, it’s believed, were spent on so-called security, the most expensive security event in Canadian history.
I believe the earth may be going through some sort of climate change. But labeling 100% man made is highly inaccurate.
Did you know that During our own American Revolution there was a mini ice age? Google the year with no summer. This ice age was one of the most prominent reasons for the French Revolution. I really don't think man could have had anything to do with it.
When I was in high school, you know-the Dinosaur era! (1970s) all the rage was global cooling. And how did it turn into warming?????
Natural causes account for most of the methane in the air. Cows, rotting plants, etc.
East Anglia University in Britain was considered the center for global warming. Just google it. Their information has been totally proven to be exagerrated, falsified and many just out and out lies.
Al Bore, the guru of global warming has become a multimillionaire thanks to global warming. (I guess all that money he made for inventing the internet is gone) The website where you go to pay for your carbon footprint is owned by who else? Al Bore. And If he truly believes this, why does he use 12 to 20% more energy in his home than others. His private jet that he uses a lot is one of the least energy efficient small jets in the air. Remember, he tells us to fly commercially. Consume less energy in our homes and cars (he drives SUVs) . If you go over, you can just go pay him at this website for your carbon footprint. So, if he really believed everything he preaches, why would he use so much carbon fuel himself?
Don't get me wrong. I want clean air and water. I want marketable alternative energy. I just think we should go about this in such a way that we don't crash our economy while doing it. I don't think we can afford the cap and tax. With all the new taxes coming in already, this needs to be put off for a few years. Oh, and I definitely recycle and use organic gardening especially around my herbs and peppers. We have a lot of geckos on the property and I want to keep them and not kill them with chemicals
Just my opinion and thoughts on this.
Did you know that During our own American Revolution there was a mini ice age? Google the year with no summer. This ice age was one of the most prominent reasons for the French Revolution. I really don't think man could have had anything to do with it.
When I was in high school, you know-the Dinosaur era! (1970s) all the rage was global cooling. And how did it turn into warming?????
Natural causes account for most of the methane in the air. Cows, rotting plants, etc.
East Anglia University in Britain was considered the center for global warming. Just google it. Their information has been totally proven to be exagerrated, falsified and many just out and out lies.
Al Bore, the guru of global warming has become a multimillionaire thanks to global warming. (I guess all that money he made for inventing the internet is gone) The website where you go to pay for your carbon footprint is owned by who else? Al Bore. And If he truly believes this, why does he use 12 to 20% more energy in his home than others. His private jet that he uses a lot is one of the least energy efficient small jets in the air. Remember, he tells us to fly commercially. Consume less energy in our homes and cars (he drives SUVs) . If you go over, you can just go pay him at this website for your carbon footprint. So, if he really believed everything he preaches, why would he use so much carbon fuel himself?
Don't get me wrong. I want clean air and water. I want marketable alternative energy. I just think we should go about this in such a way that we don't crash our economy while doing it. I don't think we can afford the cap and tax. With all the new taxes coming in already, this needs to be put off for a few years. Oh, and I definitely recycle and use organic gardening especially around my herbs and peppers. We have a lot of geckos on the property and I want to keep them and not kill them with chemicals
Just my opinion and thoughts on this.
Sorry, I should clarify..lol. What I meant was, in the US, the President can only be elected for 2 4 year terms right? Our Prime Minister can stay in office as long as he/she keeps winning. And I don't think we have rigged elections or anything like that (although with some that get into office, you have to wonder..lol). So the process is democratic, and no real problem, its just that I personally think that there should be a limit. People tend to be afraid of change, and will stick with whom they know. Sometimes a fresh face with fresh ideas is good. Just my opinion though.
Do you not believe in global warming? I do believe that much of what we are seeing today in terms of climate and weather change is due to natural earth shifts, and is no different then crazy climate changes that have been going on since the beginning of time, but I do believe that global warming is also a contributing factor. All that pollution, etc. can't be doing any good. So I believe that both are true.
Do you not believe in global warming? I do believe that much of what we are seeing today in terms of climate and weather change is due to natural earth shifts, and is no different then crazy climate changes that have been going on since the beginning of time, but I do believe that global warming is also a contributing factor. All that pollution, etc. can't be doing any good. So I believe that both are true.
You don't limit how long someone can stay in office -- don't you have elections that can oust someone the people don't want? We don't term limits, either, but if they get voted out, they are out..............
I've got a bad feeling about the global warming - someone stands to make a lot of money from that cockamamy idea......... poisoning the water is another issue......probably because I'm licensed in drinking water quality, so that's what I make my living at........
What people don't seem to understand is that everything you dump on the ground, eventually ends up in an aquifer someplace and someone is going to end up drinking it........how simple can it get???
I've got a bad feeling about the global warming - someone stands to make a lot of money from that cockamamy idea......... poisoning the water is another issue......probably because I'm licensed in drinking water quality, so that's what I make my living at........
What people don't seem to understand is that everything you dump on the ground, eventually ends up in an aquifer someplace and someone is going to end up drinking it........how simple can it get???
Yay Teko!!!!! Thanks for this post. I posted a few things about this summit, but no one seemed overly interested. Maude Barlow does indeed make a lot of sense and is a women after my own heart in many ways. She address' the issues that are important to me and many others. I wish she would run for Prime Minister!! Harper needs to go. Unfortuantely we don't limit how long someone can stay in office here....
Many dismiss these issues (global warming, poisoning our water). I don't know why, perhaps they just don't want to believe it's happening. And if we do not address poverty head on, and world wide, our future is also in trouble.
Many dismiss these issues (global warming, poisoning our water). I don't know why, perhaps they just don't want to believe it's happening. And if we do not address poverty head on, and world wide, our future is also in trouble.
I LIKE this woman. Straightshooter.
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